I’m on the road this week (Berlin and Rome). Hey, I’m allowed one vacation a year. I’m only semi-working till April 26th

Soon I hope to come up with themes for my link posts. But for now - the it remains: “Things I’m reading that don’t suck.” Many of these also expose my views towards Spot.Us.

Warnings about the online-only path
I tend to agree with Yelvington here. People ask if Spot.Us will “replace newsrooms” and the answer is still no. We need multiple paths to sustainability - and that means multiple paths of news delivery.

Investigative journalism
“When papers say, “if we’re gone, who will keep government honest?”, the answer is, every other media outlet that covers city, state and the federal government. There is nothing inherently inky about investigative journalism. Whether it’s TPM, or HuffPo, or The Nation, or ProPublica, or the Center for Independent media, or local news sites like MinnPost and Voice of San Diego, or crowd-sourced citizen journalist outfits like A Better Oakland, someone will fill the void.”And I hope that Spot.Us can help sites like A Better Oakland” do investigative reporting.

Why You Should Experiment
Fail early and fail often: “And this is a beautiful thing. The web makes the cost of failure so low it’s worth failing like crazy to learn what works. Embracing failure as part of the process is a key characteristic of those who achieve success.” Also interesting to note how cheap it is to fail. Relatively speaking the amount of money for Spot.us is very low. Even if we “fail” - I will feel as though a large contribution to the greater web has been made.

CNN acquires leading Twitter account
Can I just quit!

Yet another reason newspapers are dying
From the Daily Kos: A story of the Rocky Mountain News and why they may have had it coming. Interesting to get the other angle to their closing.

Why People Join And Participate In Online Communities
“More importantly, the best communities make it impossible not to interact. They force you to invest an idea, opinion, rating or criticism into the community. You might not even have a choice, other people might begin rating you the moment you’re in.”

“What’s “Media?” Time to Update Default Assumptions
Amy is great at challenging assumptions. I think she is right to look at what we call “new media” with skeptical eyes. Lets stop ghettoizing things with terms that mean nothing.

The newsroom: where alternate workflows go to die
If you’re a newspaper editor, I’ve learned, it’s really difficult to imagine this workflow in practice. Your entire job is structured around defined products (stories, pages and sections), not floofy things like “cascades” folks like Martin and I keep harping on.

Former Seattle P-I Staffers Launch Non-Profit News Site
Its REAL simple folks: Let people decide what stories their money goes to support. You will up the number of donations.

Philadelphia Inquirer pays Santorum $1,750 per column
I could fund one investigation a week with that….. I haven’t read Rick’s column - but I hope it has serious value add.

Landmark moments in citizen journalism
This is a subset of citizen journalism….. there have been bigger and better moments with distributed reporting.

Dan Rossen Covers JoJo For The New Yorker
Personal link. Dan Rossen was my best friend at Westwood Elementary School. Even then he had a passion for music. I am so proud of him!!!

I don’t like making fun of “old media” and adhering to stereotypes. But this video did get me chuckling.

I think it also points to a new media stereotype. “New wireless earbuds,” “Brittany Spears crotch shots” and “best mashups of the month.”

Those are some of the suggested story ideas from the new media folk. While the mayoral scandel sounds silly coming from the old media reporter with that cliche accent - there is something to be said about reporting on the local stories.

Obviously there are lots of bloggers covering the local - the scandals, etc. But the vast majority of those blogs are struggling while tech and gossip blogs flourish. I do think there will be a day, however, when this video isn’t a joke - old media reporters will become the new media blogger - and there will be a gut check period for everyone in determining what they cover.

In the switch over to Wordpress I’ve been looking over old posts. In September 2007 I laid out my definitions for “Networked Journalism” vs. “Citizen Journalism” vs. the myriad of other names for social media in the news world.”

I’m not trying to prescribe anything - just sharing how I use these words because it helps me think through what is happening online and where Spot.Us stands (look for the joke at the end of this LONG post).

That 2007 post landed me a small freelance piece for the Press Gazette where I wrote a cleaner version: “Time Citizen Journalism Pulled its Act together.” As noted - the original post was inspired by  Steve Outing’s Poynter post 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism.

It is time to revisit these definitions, update them, and add explanations to what I mean when I use certain phrases like “journalism is a process, not a product.” In reading through all of them - I hope one can see how they play off each other in my mind.

My definitions and updates for

• citizen journalism
• Stand-alone Journalism
• Pro-am Journalism
• Networked Journalism (including “Distributed Reporting.”)
• Open Source Journalism (including the re-release of stories and content sharing).

And I try and explain what I mean when I say….

• Journalism is a process - not a product.
• Collaboration is Queen
• Media is an act of community organizing
• Community Funded Reporting
• Journalism will survive the death of its institutions.
• Hyper-local
• Computational Journalism
• New Media skill set
• New Media mind set
• Journalism (yes… I get that bold)
• Professional journalism

“citizen journalism”

Update: Boss Rosen defines citizen journalism as such: “When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools in their possession to inform one another.” The reason I wrote my initial post in 2007 was because this definition (although not articulated at the time it was in the ether) is too broad. It defines a class of acts. What he is describing is Citizen Journalism with a capital “C.” I tend to avoid this term because it clashes with “citizen journalism” which I describe below, as an act that happens under very specific circumstances. I tend to refer to the class of acts as “Participatory journalism.”

Old def of citizen journalism: This is the catch phrase that started it all and while “Citizen journalism” with a capital “C” refers to an entire class of terms, and hence the confusion, if we are talking about a single act of “citizen journalism,” we most often are discussing an individual, who is not a paid journalist, who bares witness to a newsworthy event and broadcasts it. Acts of citizen journalism in this sense happen by mere coincidence. People are everywhere and when disaster strikes, someone usually has a camera.

Examples: Oscar Grant shooting, London train bombings, terror attacks in India.

“Stand-alone journalism”

In contrast to citizen journalism, this is when the individual isn’t reporting out of happenstance. The reporter, who is not acting as a “professional,” (see below) made a conscious choice to go out and report on a topic. This term was coined by Chris Nolan at Spot-on.com.

Update: These might be called “Placebloggers.” One of my favorite stand alone journalists in San Francisco is N Judah Chronicles. To my knowledge this blog is a passionate hobby, not part of the author’s profession.

“Pro-am Journalism”

The most basic form of “Citizen journalism” that news organizations tend to engage in is when professional and amateur journalists work together. It occurs through basic comments on an article – when those comments add extra information or new views that the original writer left out. These comments can be an incredible source of value to a story and are very easy to invoke. This is the basis of “pro-am journalism” but it extends to include more (below). Reporters need to learn the art of community management; and acknowledge that they now have a nuanced relationship with readers and must repeat, every day, “my readers know more than I do.”

“Network journalism”

Although it hasn’t reached its full potential, the idea is to organize groups of people through the internet to work on a single story. Like stand-alone journalism, it is a conscious decision, but large groups, rather than a lone reporter, do the work. Networked journalism rests its fate on two principles: the “wisdom of crowds” – the idea that collectives are more intelligent than individuals – and “distributed reporting.”

Update: This is often espoused by Jeff Jarvis and I believe it is what Dave Winer often describes in his posts on the future of news. Almost two years later I still don’t think network journalism has reached its full potential, which is to say, we can expect more and better coverage in this fashion. I think what is needed are mature platforms that can allow groups of like-minded individuals to find each other and do “distributed reporting.”

Distributed Reporting

The art of organizing an online work flow, so that volunteers are efficient and happy to donate time to commit acts of journalism that in aggregate helps produce news. In distributed reporting - the work load is spread out. This is contrasted nicely with “community funding” where the cost of reporting is distributed.

“Open source journalism”

Like networked journalism, these projects are collaborative. They have multiple points or “sources” of information. But open source journalism adds an important element. Either a) the re-release of stories or b) sharing information among competitors. These factors make a project “open.”

Update: I think we are starting to see the emergence of this. ProPublica, the new Huffington Post investigative arm and Spot.Us all make content available to be republished. What happens when everyone starts doing it? We focus less on “scoops” and more on collaboration.

The re-release of stories

In networked journalism, people work in collaboration on a single story. In open source, they work together on a story that is constantly refined and republished in public. Imagine a journalist who releases a story to the public. Then, using participatory or networked journalism, more reporting and information is added and the story is reworked and republished. This method can produce amazing results. Covering an election, you’ll need a definitive story once the results are in. An open source story will feel very anti-climatic. But covering development in a community, the story will probably last several months, lending itself to new versions.

Update: Not unlike this blog post where I started defining these terms for myself. This would be the third release of it.

Sharing information:

While this has major potential, it has yet to be realized. Imagine 100 newspapers covering the same topic: “Local effects of global warming.” Each paper covers its own neighborhood, gathering the same information, local bird migration, average temperatures and more. Each paper would have a story serving its local readers, but if it shared that information with the other 99 papers, they could create a national view of global warming. You lose the scoop, but you get to be part of a story that is greater than that which your single paper could ever produce.

Update: See “What happens to my recyclables” on Spot.Us. Now imagine we raise $4,000 instead of $400. We hire ten reporters to do this story in ten different cities - all sharing their methods and ideas, so the finishes package is better than the sum of its parts. Spot.Us in this sense becomes the SourceForge of how to do this story. I also think that the move of ProPublica and Huffington Post to share their investigative work with newspapers is incredibly interesting and, not to pat myself on the back, validates a lot of my early thoughts on sharing of content. Scoops have the half life of a link. Being the first one to cover a story is not nearly as cool as being one of ten or more organizations to all cover a story together.

Phrases

Journalism is a process - not a product.

Newspapers, TV shows and magazines are products that contain journalism. But journalism is a process. It is a series of acts one does to collect, filter, distribute and add value to information. Journalism is never finished. Even when you package a story in a newspaper - the story is not done. Stories are never open and shut cases. They develop over time and this can be reflected in the re-release of stories.

Collaboration is Queen

Analogy is of a chess board: Content is king (the most important) but collaboration is queen (the most powerful.

Extending the analogy

• Rooks are technology (I love Casteling as a first move)
• Bishops are your project managers - either technology or community.
• Knights are your editors/reporters
• Pawns are your community (and can become queens if you get them to the other side of the board)

Media is an act of community organizing

I missed the 60’s - but I hear they were awesome! When you wanted to make a change back then, you’d get a bunch of people together and picket something. That still occurs.

But a YouTube video can be the modern march. Many YouTube videos are made with this in mind. It is media - but it is also a force of change. Before you whine “that it is all bias and unfair,” consider a well accepted motto, that journalism is supposed to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Also - get off your high-horse.

Community Funded Reporting

Distributing the cost of hiring a journalist across many different people. This can be contrasted with distributing reporting - where the work load is spread out. It is a new business model. Nothing else about the journalism changes.

“Journalism will survive the death of its institutions.”

One of my all time favorite quotes. The rallying cry should be “save journalism” not “save newspapers.” It is a mistake to conflate the two. Journalism is a process (see above) that can and will survive the death of its institutions.

Hyperlocal

I hate the word “hyperlocal.” I don’t know why “local” isn’t enough. For me hyperlocal is a word used to avoid having to say “community.” We should be doing “community journalism” not “hyperlocal.” When I read hyperlocal - I often replace it with “community” and don’t need to skip a beat.

Computational Journalism

An evolution of NICAR or database journalism. The world is filled with data sets. Computational journalism turns these data sets into something digestible. Think info graphics. More than that, however, the data becomes interactive. One can easily slice and dice the data through their computer to find the information that is most relevant to them. Adrian Holovaty’s work are great examples as are Matt Waite’s and Derek Willis. Having the programming skills of a second grader (maybe today that isn’t so bad now) this is probably the field of journalism I am least involved in, but I respect it greatly. There is also something to be said for the name: I believe Adrian has said he doesn’t like the term “computational journalism.” But I go back to the disclaimer at the top - these are the terms/defintions I use. I am not prescribing them to anyone.

New Media skill set

This is now 1/2 of what journalist schools are repeating over and over again. We need to teach “new media skill set….” For me this boils down to digital storytelling. In Greek times oration was the only way to tell a story. And some individuals got really good at it. Jouranalism consists of stories and ideas. Telling a good story is an art and a new media skill set means being able to tell stories well online. This includes photos, video, audio and more.

New Media mind set

The other half of what journalist schools say they need to teach “… and new media mind set.” Too often, however, I get the impression that journalism professors think that teaching a “new media mind set” is to make sure students keep in mind they need a “new media skill set.” The two are very different. A new media mind set means engaging with readers. It means using tools like blogs, twitter, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, blip.tv and other free networking sites not just to tell your story (skill set) but to engage with communities on their level.

Journalism

Journalism is a process: Collecting information, filtering information and distributing information. Often this consists of analyzing information to add value or meaning ie: with all this information here’s why it is important. It also includes caveats: the information must be accurate and throroughly researched. Through this process journalism takes the form of stories and ideas.

Professional Journalism

“When somebody makes money doing journalism.” Analogy - if somebody plays guitar on the streets for money - they are professional musicians (just not very successful ones). Doing something with the intent and expectation of being paid makes one a professional journalist.

Simple, right? So why did I feel the need to define it as such?

Occasionally I hear people say “professional journalism” when they mean “good journalism” because they equate the two. They say: “Yes but this is ‘professional journalism.’” Note: citizen journalism can be good and professional journalism can be bad.

I love the folks at Public-Press, so I hope they don’t mind me using them as an example.

I often hear the Public-Press refer to what they do as “professional journalism.” At the same time, however, the Public-Press, except for one individual, is run by volunteers. Most of the content they publish is produced for free or is from Spot.Us. Since Spot.Us’ content is paid - I would argue that this is the “professional” content they have. That said - I think A LOT of their content is good. Either way an ex-journalist who is volunteering at the Public-Press is now a stand-alone journalist. And guess what - there is nothing wrong with that. Don’t ghettoize it!

People also refer to Spot.Us as “citizen journalism.” Spot.Us is, without a doubt, participatory. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But the content we produce in the end is made by reporters who get paid. So the finished work is not citizen journalism - although citizens are involved in every step of the process.

Social Media Expert

A jackass that is trying to get hired so they can sell you snake oil.

So how do I describe Spot.Us? Simple….

“Spot.Us is participatory journalism that believes journalism is a process not a product, funded through community organizing efforts. We strive to use networked practices and open source principles, enabling stand-alone journalists to reach further and become professionals, pushing content sharing among news organizations so that collaboration can produce powerful stories of distributed reporting. The endeavor is run by David Cohn who is a social media expert.

I need to work on my elevator pitch

I want to continue my posts of “journalism business ideas.”

I still think the best idea I have (aside from Spot.Us) is a newsroom cafe. Combine that with Copy Camps and you have a newsroom that is at the center of a community.

This post has three more ideas. Admittedly they seem more like side-projects than entire business models - but why not just throw them out there?

1. WalkablePath.com

Today I walked from the Civic Center of San Francisco to Chestnut and Divisadero and back to my apartment in the Mission. Anybody that lives in San Francisco knows it isn’t the distance that makes walking tough, it’s the hills.

Perhaps this already exists - but I’d love an interface where people could insert the general ascent of their streets (mild hill north, steep hill west, etc) into the map.

Then some simple logic could determine the least resistant path for a walker. The logic could also include “extra distance walked” to avoid hills - and allow you to toggle that to your preference.

2. AmatuerWeather.com

A simple site where you can enter your zip code and then predict the weather for the next five days. The site then compares your predictions to the real outcomes and rewards you with points. Granted it is a niche site - but I could imagine some weather nerds geeking out on this.

Extra points if you predict something that Weather.com got wrong.

3. And just to be cheeky, I’ll throw out East Bay Express‘ idea presented in “Saving Newspapers: The Musical.”

Hey - East Bay Express, I’m raising money for freelance journalists in the Bay Area. You are in the Bay, you probably use freelancers. Idea: Give me a call.

That’s right… I’m calling you out!!! Or - you can always try and make more viral videos.

You always want to keep an eye on young-guns growing up underneath you. I’ve already publicly said that the Co-Press kids scare the bejasus out of me (in a good way). This group of students is growing and they have the ability to accomplish a lot.

As an example…. Daniel Bachhabur. I dare you to not be infected with his enthusiasm.

(Full disclosure, Copress brought me in as an advisor - but only because I flattered them as much as possible).

In my recent switch to Wordpress (officially complete) I am late to write about my new-found friend Alexis Madrigal’s post in the Nieman Reports Journal on his experience with Spot.Us.

In fact, Alexis was the very first Spot.Us reporter. He was our monkey shot into space. I’m happy to say he has come back down from orbit and continues to do interesting and innovative reporting projects at Wired (my old stomping ground).

I particularly like his wit about how our friendship began and his response to the now tired (but still always asked) question about Spot.Us and the influence of money.

It seems to be a time-honored journalistic tradition to launch partnerships over beer. So whatever else David Cohn and I might have gone on to do differently, know that some things are still sacred among reporters.

….

People—OK, only other journalists—often ask me, “Did you think about who was funding your story?” Sure, I did. I wanted to thank them by providing the most honest reporting I could. Even if I’d wanted to write what the funders wanted, I don’t think I could have. It would have taken a lot of research just to figure out their angle on biofuels. As I told a Dutch weekly when they interviewed me about it, “There was no John ‘I Love Ethanol’ Smith on the [funders] list.” And besides, this was my story that they’d agreed to fund, and I was the one going to report it. None of my funders contacted me or in any way suggested that I push the story in a given direction.

And now that the transition to wordpress is complete - expect blogging to resume at a new and inspired pace (for a few more days and then I’ll get bored and go back to Twitter again).

There are more updates to spot.us than I can really fit into a MediaShift IdeaLab post. For the list-y version of recent milestones - scroll down to the bottom.

But first, I want to highlight a very specific example of forward momentum both for Spot.us and the notion that news organizations don’t try new things. I try and avoid the “new media v. old media” debate. What I often say is “I have constructive criticism for both sides.”

Details on new media criticism: It needs to mature and blossom.
Details on old media criticism. It must learn to be agile - fail early and often.

Recently Spot.Us and the Oakland Tribune have come together to partner and the collaboration can be an example on how both sides can address their weaknesses.

The Project: Oakland’s streets face dire future without change.

My hat goes off to Martin Reynolds at the Oakland Tribune. From the first time I explained Spot.Us he has had a “yes” attitude.

I have to admit at first I wasn’t ecstatic about the subject. But having time to reflect, it is the perfect pitch. This is the quintessential local story. In some ways it is almost cliche - but in the case of Oakland, the streets really are in poor condition. It is also a story that can be repeated in San Jose, Palo Alto, and beyond (yes, I’m calling out future news organizations to repeat).

“This is a problem we all have as a community” Reynolds said to me in conversation. And that is when I realized why this project made perfect sense. The Tribune is an Oakland organization that is the best suited to tackle this issue, to find out what challenges the city faces, hold people accountable, and perhaps even enact change.This is an act of more than just journalism - but community.

The reporter they chose is somebody that freelances with them regularly. Fine by me - in fact, preferred.

Community Journalism: Check!!!

A big part of this story will be a map-mashup. The map alone won’t tell the story - but for obvious reasons it makes the whole story that much stronger.

One reporter cannot find all the potholes in Oakland. Sean Maher might know of some trouble spots - but this is a job for distributed reporting.

Spot.Us is going to organize “The Great Biking Pothole Search.” (details to come on our blog … seriously, this is going to be exciting!!!)

Still in the early stages of planning, the idea is to get as many bike-lovers as possible to meet on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and bike in different directions for 40 minutes (20 one way and 20 back) making notes of all the major potholes they see. These will then be recorded on the map.

Community members doing acts of journalism.

Alone the map doesn’t tell the whole story. And while some community members will donate 40 minutes of a Saturday afternoon - others will donate $10. That money will be used to pay a freelance journalism chosen by the Tribune - because we still need a reporter. And this is where new forms of media can learn to mature. It helps to have a reporter, in this case Tribune freelancer Maher, at the head of the project. He is accountable to ask questions to the right folks, find out what the challenges are, stick to the story, etc.

The idea: Some parts of journalism are best done distributed. Others are not.

Which is to say Content is King and Collaboration is Queen

Think in terms of Chess: The King is the most important piece, but the Queen is the most powerful.

Content is King: You want to make sure you produce quality reporting and a crafted narrative. This is best done by one person at the head.

Collaboration is Queen: If you don’t involve the larger community you will never be able to map the potholes in your community and in the case of Spot.Us you’ll never be able to afford the reporter who takes care of the content.

Life is a big game of chess - and the analogies abound.

Some updates on Spot.Us in List-y Form.

Trying to Evangelize

How to Build Your Own Community Funded Reporting Project.

Publishing stories

• Muni in Spite of Budget Gloom
• Stacey’s Closing (A one-day story that I’m glad Spot.Us tried - but probably won’t try again. All went smooth, but I don’t know if we are really adding value. a Spot.Us blog post should go more in depth here).
• Return of the Hooverville: A very touching story that has now been retold by the New York Times - about six weeks after Spot.Us, KALW and Roxbury News collaborated to report on the issue.

Almost ready to publish!!!

• Oakland PD investigation: This story was funded six days before the Oscar Grant shooting. Since then the Chief has stepped down, four officers have been shot and the story continues to evolve. I do think that Alex Gronke at the Oakbook is wrapping it up and I am very excited.
• Oscar Grant short documentary: The case has now been put on hold. The reporter has captured an interesting moment in Oakland’s history.
• A Tale of Two Census Tracts: I read the draft yesterday and was incredibly moved. If you live in San Francisco then you know the Tenderloin is falling apart. The reporter has gone through census data and really paints a picture of stark contrast between SF’s rich and poor neighborhoods. But the story is also told with a beautiful narrative. This will be published in Race Poverty and the Environment, but we also hope to distribute it wider through Street Sheet, Street Spirit and perhaps the SF Guardian.
• Oakland Schools Phasing Out. The reporter got an educational reporting fellowship with New American Media based on the work she was doing for Spot.Us. As a result - she is able to go further into the story. We were thrilled!
• Newspapers in the face of changing times: Still in the works. A draft is being tossed around. In truth I was very hesitant to tackle this piece and almost took it down, but people started donating to it before I could.
• Is the Bullet Train Still on Track? In collaboration with the Bay Area Monitor.

Stories we hope to fund soon.

• A look at Alameda’s city budget (Update… FUNDED!!)
• Vindication of a Public Scholar (only $100 shy.
• Oakland’s Streets (see above) (only $120 shy).

Working with News Organizations

We’ve now worked or partnered with the following in some form or other.

• Oakland Tribune (big w00t)
• Berkeley Daily Planet
• SF Appeal
• RawStory.com
• Kalw
• Public-Press
• Roxbury News
• NewsDesk.org
• VidSF.com
• Bay Area Monitor

And hopefully more collaboration in the making.

We’ve refunded two stories!!!

I am INCREDIBLY excited about this. The biggest appeal Spot.Us has to donors is the notion that they have the chance of getting their money back so they can reinvest it towards a second article. I am happy to say we’ve done this twice now.

Boulavards.com, On Earth Magazine

Thinking Outside the Box

In-person fundraising events are in the works. Think of these as “rent parties.”

I am still a big believer in online organizing - but since we are working in communities, doing community journalism, we intend to put our faces out there as much as our Tweets. You need both.

New Features

If you haven’t visited Spot.us in awhile - you should check out our new features.

The site remains incomplete. Potential ideas we have.

• “Join the reporting team” could turn into ‘pick up assignments’ ala IAmNews.com
• More social networking features: Tweet this, Facebook it, etc.
• The ability to show support for a story without donating money ala Digg.
• Easier registration/login process.
• Refine the new “group” functionality - which has been successfully tested
• Widget that allows donations on any blog via Flash-widget cool-y-ness (far off)
• A beat pitch: I’ll cover city hall for X weeks if we can raise y dollars by date Z. If we reach the goal - I’ll keep going.

Personal thoughts

I continue to have nothing but passion. This last weekend I spoke to the Alaskan Press Club. It was an honor to be invited out. At the beginning of my talk I said: “I will not lie to you” … but at the end of that same sentence I said “I am optimistic for the future.”

And I remain so. Spot.Us is making progress. We are far from being a fully fledged news organization, but that isn’t our goal. We are learning all the time and with each passing week getting closer and closer.

I’m also happy to say that we have funded almost (emphasis on almost) one story a week.

Twitter turned three years old recently and I celebrated my two-year twitter anniversary. Also - last November I had my three year blog-birthday (First posts in 2005).

Looking at my early blog posts and Tweets are informative to me now. You can tell in the beginning I wasn’t sure what to do. My first @ message was to my friend Mary Specht and it was a complete accident (start at the bottom of the Tweet feed below to see the first tweets). My second post was a massive throat clearing. My fourth blog post was about Digg and how I used it to find original stories. The irony today being that anything on Digg is already old news. My fifth post was pure satire (I am officially over Amanda Cogdon)

Regardless of what you Tweeted, blogged, etc - it is important to take a step back and look at how you first engaged with these tools. Hindsight being 20/20 what would you do differently? How can this help one prepare for adapting to use the next tool that comes around? Because there will be a next tool. Remembering what it is like to have fresh eyes, how would you design your own startup to change journalism?

On a p.s: Also interesting is how you remember things better when you have jotted down notes like this. The lunch, for example, was with MrBabyMan - now the #1 Digger in the world. A community which, I’m sad to say, I’ve fallen out of touch with since Spot.Us turned my life into a whirlwind.

Then you might notice my “Useless Mutant Power” meme. That is in reference to my guilty pleasure blog “Useless Mutant Powers.” Yes - even my hobbies are nerdy. More than anything, however, this side-blog and my early Tweets were baby steps.

What baby steps did you take and how might that of influenced where you are now?